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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7486437" data-attributes="member: 16814">What about games that don't feature combat, or who don't use traditional mechanics (like, say, Amber Diceless)?  This definition of play is ridiculously narrow.  I suppose it's consistent, in that you've defined everything as set-up except a narrow range of things, and done so only for RPGs, and therefore preserved your definition of RPGs as different from other games, but it's really just a load of special pleading, yeah?For instance, under this metric, which part of playing Pictionary is playing?  Drawing is setup for the guesses, so, no.  Guessing only then?  The only people playing Pictionary are the ones actively guessing and then only when they guess?  What a strange set of definitions you have, and I cannot agree with them at all.  Spiraling down increasingly silly distinctions to preserve your premises isn't exactly winning, you know.Two things:1) there's no GM set-up duties to take on.  This is implying that the GM has this duty and is giving it to the player, but I've scoured my Blades rulebook and there are no set-up duties mentioned anywhere.  What you're doing it bringing in your assumptions and then assigning them to the games.  In this case, you've assumed that the GM has set-up duties inherently, and so this rule of Blades is sharing those out.  This isn't true at all.  In Blades, these are the areas of responsibility and authority -- there's no sharing out because there's no point at which the GM has responsibility or authority over what's possible.2) it's silly to claim that authority over what's possible is set-up duties at all.  I declare "what's possible" in play by making an action declaration.  This is then tested by the mechanics.  A declaration could be 'I stab the guard with my sword before he raises the alarm' which, according to your above, counts as combat and therefore play.  But, just as easily, I could say, "I pick the lock on the kitchen back door."  Both are tested with exactly the same mechanics in Blades -- an action roll.  They are presented and tested using the mechanics with the same set of guidelines for adjudication (ie, the DM sets position and effect, a 6 is a succes, 4-5 partial success with complication, and 1-3 failure).  Done.  There's no 'set-up' here because the mechanics require an action nomination, the action nomination is up to the player (what's possible is a player authority), and the test for success uses the mechanics.  This is entirely play.But, everything defines the setting.  If I kill that orc in combat, that defines the setting (an orc was killed here).  Your answers are circular.  Set-up is defined as anything that defines the setting, and setting is anything that you set-up before, during, or after play (a nonsensenical answer to begin with, but that bridge was crossed long back).  You're using the Humpty-Dumpty defense, here:Goodness, why would you expect it to?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /></blockquote>

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